Awakening
by Berlinoisette
Summary: Post-Game. Back in Jackson, Teen Ellie realises, there are some new feelings awakening inside her. Joel also seems to start thinking and feeling in a new direction. JoelXEllie. Don't like, don't read.
1. Chapter 1

This is an ElliexJoel Story, rated M for a reason. Don't like, don't read.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Last Of Us. Great Game though. Enjoy.

Her heart was pounding like crazy.

'What the fuck is going on?' She sat upright, anxiously looking around the room. Small droplets of sweat started slowly rolling down her face and she let out a deep sigh as if she had been holding her breath for five minutes straight. She was still in bed; half covered by a woolen blanket Maria had given her a few weeks back.

She didn't quite know what had been the reason for her abrupt awakening but she figured it was best to move and find out. Her flight instinct was still acutely alert due to all the shit that had been happening over the past twelve months. Ellie found it wasn't as easy as she had hoped to grow accustomed to this much safer lifestyle she and Joel had been enjoying for a while now. Living in the ever-growing "City of Jackson" (as Maria insisted they call the accumulation of shacks and self-built houses in the valley) had been nice and quiet – just the opposite of most of Ellie's life up until now.

She shook the painful thoughts that tried to nag on the edge of her consciousness aside and tried to ignore the spasm in her stomach. 'Just nerves', she tried to calm herself with no real effect.

Ellie got up and went to the window looking out into their backyard (or more likely the little patch of weeds that they had started working on to transform into a nice garden only yesterday). It was still a little dark outside and she couldn't quite make out if there was something to worry about out there or not. She tried focusing on her hearing instead, but failed to find any disturbing sound reaching her ears. Quietly she walked over to the door of her room and opened it so she could peek into the hallway of their house. Joel's room was just two doors down, only the bathroom separated their private quarters.

She wasn't sure if she should be grateful for this, since Joel sometimes snored loudly for no apparent reason. Though, Ellie couldn't remember ever really being bothered by it (except maybe in the beginning of their journey, when she had loathed his guts), but now and again the snoring seemed loud as gunfire in this shitty silent little town. At other times, it had been the most soothing of all noises – especially after last winter. She smelled something burning and started shivering immediately. 'Just a memory', she tried to calm herself.

The hallway was dark and silent as well. No snoring, no light, no nothing.

'Weird', Ellie thought and turned to go back to bed. She definitely still had some more hours until she needed to get up and report for duty. A yawn fought its way up to her mouth and she nestled down in her comfy blanket once more.

As she closed her eyes, a scene popped into her head. Strong hands were hugging her and caressing her back. Soft, long strokes made her skin tickle and her hands found their way around the other person's body to reciprocate the embrace. Somehow, Ellie felt like having seen these images before and - opening her eyes again – realized that this image was exactly, what had made her wake up in the first place. Although the dream could – from an outsider's perspective – seem innocent, Ellie felt a slight prickling sensation between her thighs and a mild spasm in her lower abdomen. This reaction she assessed to definitely not being innocent at all!

For the second time she wondered, what the hell the matter was. These last few days had most certainly been the strangest ones in her short but adventurous life. And this dream was a pretty good example. Only two days ago, she had watched some of the men at work building another home for who-knows-who and Joel and Tommy had been supervising and helping. Everyone had been sweating under the gleaming September sun and soon enough they had all gotten rid of their shirts/flannels/tees (you name it), pearls of sweat glistening on each one of their torsos and backs. Ellie had suddenly felt her heartbeat quickening and her breath catching in her throat, before she had coughed and shaken her head in confusion and the moment had passed.

It seemed to her that all of a sudden, totally normal situations or actions of other people turned her into this weird reacting human being. Maybe she was falling ill? The camp doctor (a former veterinarian) had told her about all these different kinds of diseases humankind (and animals) had worried about before this damn fungal apocalypse. She may be immune and not turn into a clicker any time soon but that didn't mean she couldn't get the flu or something.

Going back to sleep proved really difficult. Every time she closed her eyes those strong arms would pull her into a hug again and that was just distracting as hell. So she lay in bed till sunrise and got up with a strong intent to go see the camp doctor that very day.

When Joel went down to the kitchen to prepare some breakfast, Ellie had already disappeared to who knows where. He had heard her close the door on her way out while he had been getting dressed. Now he wondered, if he should prepare breakfast for her as well or not. Might as well…

It was strange, to not see her in the morning. He didn't like to admit it, but he kind of missed sleeping next to the little bugger. It had been some time now, that both of them had claimed their own room, 'cause some of the town folk would have deemed it 'inappropriate', as Maria kept on reminding him, till he couldn't take her shit anymore. Not one of them really knew, what the two of them had been going through, yet alone how safe one felt knowing the person who usually got your back slept right alongside you.

He didn't want to think about the events of last winter, but of course they sprung up right next to his memories of killing clickers and runners. 'Fucking asshole…', Joel thought while picturing David's remains (all bloody with a deep cut from ear to ear, stab wounds in his eyes an thorax etc.). That offered him a little comfort at least. Joel had never really asked Ellie what had happened while he was blacked out and she never seemed to want to share either. As he himself hated prying as much as it gets, he thought it better to just wait for her to open up. Though that left him to his own imagination, which as sure as hell wasn't comforting at all.

For sometime, Ellie had flinched at every touch (although Joel wasn't the touching type to begin with). Only a hand on her shoulder would make her jump or dive away from the hand as if it were on fire. That had led him to believe, fucking David might have touched her, you know, in a really bad way. He shook his head in order to loose the images forming involuntarily: Ellie in a cell, Ellie tied down, Ellie being hit in the face, Ellie getting stripped and screaming 'NO!', Ellie struggling for her virtue and life…

"Goddamn it!", he grunted. If she hadn't killed this motherfucker, he would have. And to be honest, that would have probably been best, considering Ellie's mental state after the incident. She was as quiet as shit and that just wasn't right.

Joel tried to get rid of all these thoughts and get back to reality. She was alright now. Happy as a clam, so to speak.

"It's not the flu, that is all I can tell you Ellie." The camp doctor Paul looked at her reassuringly with a smile on his face. Or was it more like a big ass grin? Ellie was confused. He had hardly examined her and just listened to her describing the normal situations that had made her feel so weird.

"Don't you need to check my temperature or something?", she asked disbelievingly.

"Nope. Pretty sure it's nothing serious. Let's just say nature is kicking in." Was he fucking kidding her with this? Did he honestly believe that would make her feel any less anxious? This fucking vagueness and stupid smirk on his face?

"What d'you mean by that? Am I finally turning into on of those monsters, cause I can tell you, you are fucking gonna be my first stop!"

"Whoa there, calm down. It's nothing like that. I'd rather you talked to Maria about this though. I don't really feel comfortable having 'the talk' with you." He enunciated the noun so strongly that Ellie couldn't possibly miss that there had to be a hidden meaning to it. But what exactly did he mean?

"You are a fucking nightmare of a doctor", she grunted and walked off toward Maria's home. She had to still be home having breakfast with Tommy. They only lived two houses down from her and Joel's. She guessed, Tommy might have had something to do with it. Not everybody had welcomed Joel and Ellie back with open arms, when they had arrived after the whole Firefly-Seattle-debacle. He probably wanted to keep them close in order to keep them safe.

Before she knew it, she was standing outside their home, knocking – rather franticly – at the wooden front door. Ellie could hear sounds of a commotion inside the house and wondered for a second if intruders had made their way into their village. The moment it took for her to weigh her options (a: storming in ready to shoot or b: running to her home and get Joel) was enough for Maria to answer the door clearly distracted and looking like she had just been in a fight. Her hair was all messed up and she was panting slightly. The red blouse she was wearing was buttoned up all wrong and the fly of her jeans was undone.

"What up, Ellie?", she asked trying to be nonchalant, leaning against the door frame.

"Er… is everything alright? I thought I heard some fighting or whatever…"

"Everything is just peachy. Just redecorating, you know, moving some furniture around with Tommy" – she turned towards the kitchen and yelled louder (and a little shriller) than was necessary – "Hey, Tommy, Ellie heard us moving the furniture, we should really keep it down!" - "Hey, Ellie!" Tommy replied curtly but didn't emerge from the kitchen. In the meantime Maria had turned her head back to watch Ellie curiously.

"So, what's up?", she asked again.

Ellie shook her head in confusion. She got the feeling there was something going on, that had nothing to do with furniture. But she tried to focus on her problem and what the doctor had ordered her to do.

"I have been feeling weird since a few days and Paul said it's not the flu and that I should have 'the talk'" – she mimicked quotation marks with her hands – "with you because it would make him uncomfortable and I am just plain confused as to what is going on with me lately." She felt like she had just pulled the plug on her thoughts and babbled on without interruption from Maria about the strange things that kept happening to her heart and breath and perspiration and belly.

A knowing smile crept on Marias face as Ellie continued, retelling the sighting of bare chested sweating men and the repeating image of being hugged tightly. Suddenly, Maria pulled her into a firm but soft embrace and planted a kiss on the top of her head. Then she took Ellie's hand and pulled her inside the house. The girl followed her into the living room and they sat down on the old yet comfy sofa.

"It's hormones, darling", Maria said simply as if that would explain everything.

"What hormones?", Ellie asked.

"The ones that sometimes go overboard when you really hit puberty."

What the fuck? Ellie remembered the conversation she had had with Marlene when her breasts had started growing and the time her period had started. She knew she could get pregnant now and that bleeding into your pants every four weeks wasn't abnormal (although it was fucking disgusting and definitely not the best part of every month). She sort of knew of the concept of puberty but what the hell was the involvement of so-called hormones in this matter and how did they connect to her feeling weird?

Looking at Ellie's face, Maria contemplated whether to dive into a full-blown version of 'sex ed – post apocalyptic style' or test her little protégé as to what she knew.

"You have your period already, right, Ellie?"

"Yeah", she responded shyly. That was definitely not something cool to talk about.

"And did you ever talk with somebody about… sex?", Maria asked tentatively.

Ellie nodded slightly. A blush rose to her cheeks and she looked down, suddenly overly interested in the structure of the cushion lying next to her.

"Well see, your body is kind of 'awakening', if you will, and wants to introduce you to the possibility of having sex. The hormones I talked about earlier are responding to different triggers – like seeing hot nude men sweating from labor. It is kind of in our genes. It's like nature's way of telling us to go procreate and prepare our body for the pleasures to come… Sorry, I'm terrible at this."

"But, but… I don't want to be a mother. I am still a teenager!" Ellie exclaimed in a scared tone. Maria put her right hand on Ellie's arm, calming her down.

"That's not what I am saying. Your body is just telling you that you can start exploring a little. I think it definitely told you that well build guys with strong arms are a turn-on." She smiled broadly and patted Ellie's arm reassuringly. Then she suddenly stood up and pulled the girl up on her feet with her.

"You just go home and think about what I said. If you have any questions, you know where to find me", Maria said in a sort of rushed tone "…just be sure to knock!" – she added quickly. "And now excuse me, I have some more redecorating to do." And with that the village leader ushered Ellie out the door.

This evening, Ellie was really still at the dinner table. Joel glanced at her and wondered if he should be worrying or not. He didn't like her being this quiet. Thoughts about David's attack on her emerged again and he wondered if this was the right time to ask about what had happened.

"Ellie?"

She didn't answer, didn't even look up from her untouched plate of baked potatoes. Her fork kept making slight scratching noises as she moved it across the plate.

"Ellie, you alright?", he asked again a bit louder. This time she stirred in her seat a little and lifted an empty fork to her mouth. Joel frowned but didn't try again. 'Chicken', he cursed himself. When he had finished, he started cleaning the table and when he asked if she was done with her food as well she escaped her trance abruptly.

"What did you say?", she asked.

"Just wanted to know if you were done… what's going on with you?" His voice betrayed a hint of annoyance. He had worked on the new house on the other end of town all day with a few other men (who where all a bit grumpy and annoyed with the hot summer they were having which made every kind of labor nearly unbearable) and had really been looking forward to a nice evening with Ellie – talking, cleaning guns or doing whatever.

"What? Nothing!" Her reply came a little too quickly with a bit too much hope in her eyes à la please-believe-me. This girl was so bad at hiding things, he almost laughed. She speedily stuffed some potatoes in her mouth and began chewing energetically – obviously avoiding any sort of discussion he might have been planning on starting.

Joel shook his head in disbelief. Sometimes Ellie was just so fucking weird. 'Teenagers', he heard a familiar voice say exasperatedly inside his mind. Oh well…

He settled on the couch and continued reading the shitty thriller he had found in the town's library. When he heard Ellie get up and put away her things, he looked up to meet her eyes lingering on him and wondered what the heck had happened over the last 24 hours. When she realized that he was looking questioningly back at her, she jumped a little and resolutely turned towards the stairs, threw him a quick "G'night" over her shoulder and was gone.

For the second time in two days she awoke with a jolt.

"Damn it", she cursed under her breath. Ellie didn't dare to close her eyes again but sat up rapidly and without hesitation turned towards the adjoining bathroom. With a few strides she reached the faucet and began angrily splashing water onto her face. If this weird dreaming continued, she would never have a decent night of sleep ever again. She tried deliberately thinking about anything else than what had happened in her dream – beetles, flowers, hunting, clickers, damn David… she stopped abruptly and choked a little. 'No, let's not go there… not a good idea…'

She stood up straight, looking at herself in the mirror. Her face was still the same, reddish brown hair up in a ponytail, her bright green eyes wide open. For a moment, she didn't dare look below her neck. All this talk about her body being ready for sex – or getting ready or whatever – had blocked her mind to the outside world ever since she had talked to Maria this morning. And now all she could think about was her body changing not only on the outside (she looked down at her chest and saw that her breasts were indeed a bit more pronounced against her sleeping shirt – an old flannel of Joel's) but on the inside, too. Did that mean, that every girl/ woman had the same kind of thoughts as the ones preoccupying Ellie's conscious and subconscious?

"Fuck!", she swore and slapped the basin with her hand.

All of a sudden there was some noise coming from the next-door-room. Joel's room. And she cursed herself for not holding back on the bad language and volume at this time of night. Surely Joel could use a good night's sleep as well as her. But too late; he was already standing in the doorframe on his side of the bathroom, looking around to check the tiny room for unwanted surprises. Ellie felt a small relief that she wasn't the only one who had difficulty dropping her survival, fight and flight instincts.

"What's wrong, kiddo?", he finally asked, when no apparent threat showed itself.

She shook her head. "Nothing. Sorry for waking you up…"

"Bad dream?", he asked concerned. Ever since her traumatic experience last winter, she had often had nightmares in which David would succeed on strangling her.

"Kind of…", she trailed off not daring to look the man in the eye. She couldn't possibly talk to Joel about her being (firmly but gently) pinned down by those strong hands of her dream the day before and then being caressed along her neck by soft fingers.

Gladly enough, Joel didn't ask any further questions. He probably thought about another David-nightmare and just stepped aside, pointing to his room with one hand.

"Come lie down with me, I'll keep you safe." His voice was so soft and Ellie knew, if she went back to her room, she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep anyway. Maybe Joel could step in as a dream catcher. They had slept beside each other the first few weeks after their arrival in the village (and of course every night before on their journey), but Joel had apparently wanted some privacy and had built her a bed to put in her own room. Sometimes she really missed, having his huge form next to her, protecting her (but since there was hardly any danger in this god-forsaken town, there was no excuse to continue, she reckoned).

Ellie nodded without saying another word and followed him into his room. They lay down next to each other without touching. The grown man lifted his blanket to cover them both, hugged her once awkwardly from the side, wished Ellie a good night and settled on his back. The girl turned on her left side to look at him. The few silvery hairs (hiding between his black mane) were glistening in the moonlight coming through the window. She wanted to snuggle up to him but didn't dare. He looked so peaceful and relaxed, that Ellie exhaled and finally started to calm down. She closed her eyes and when she didn't see any remnants of the weird dream, she quickly dozed off.

Joel felt the warm morning sunlight on his skin before he saw it. He struggled a little to open his eyes, which wanted to stay shut and make him drift off to sleep once more. When he finally succeeded, one look out the window told him that it was still early. He listened to some birds singing their morning hymn and closed his eyes again, relaxing against his pillow.

Besides him, Ellie was stirring, too. Small noises where escaping her mouth and for a moment he feared she could have another nightmare. Joel turned on his side to watch the girl lying next to him. Her eyes were shut tightly and her features showed distress.

"Ellie?" He gently touched her shoulder to wake her but out of nowhere her right hand flew up to push his away. 'What?', he didn't quite understand what was going on until he saw her hand disappear between the covers again. Hesitantly he began lifting the blanket off of their bodies.

He froze.

The young girl had captured both her arms in between her legs, her hands unmistakably pressing against her sex, her small hips moving slightly for- and backwards.

He let the blanket drop back into place and hurriedly got up. The way downstairs to the kitchen wasn't even registered. His subconscious also managed to prepare a kettle for tea while trying to avoid any actual thinking. But that was a plan bound to fail. Of course the picture was imprinted in his mind and he couldn't shake the feeling of having witnessed something innocent and shameful at the same time.

Wasn't Ellie way too young to be doing something like that? What age did she say she was again when they had met? Fourteen? Now fifteen? He hadn't exactly been keeping track. Birthdays weren't a big thing for Joel anymore as it painfully reminded him of the night following his birthday and what he had lost. He glanced at his watch and paused for a moment, remembering Sarah's happy face when she had offered him his present.

The boiling kettle brought him back to the present. He finished preparing his tea and sat down at their dinner table. A struggle erupted inside his mind whether he should even be thinking about what had been or was still going on inside his bedroom. Sure, it was his bedroom – damn, his BED – that had been the scene of the crime. Okay, not a crime exactly. She had been asleep, hadn't she though? So maybe she wasn't even aware of what she had been doing?

'She is just an innocent girl' Joel tried to calm himself.

'Don't be such a hypocrite!' another part of him reproved. 'When did you start jerking off? Be honest!'

He scratched his beard, then closed his eyes and put his head in his palms, his elbows resting on the table. An exasperated sigh left him as he tried to reason with himself. Sure, he had been even younger – twelve to be exact – when he had started exploring. Some buddies had brought a dirty magazine from one of their fathers to school one day and they had all hung back after classes to inspect it closely. That was the first time he had looked at the female body with lust (not that he had known how to call the feeling that had crept up on him back then). On this cold autumn day thirty-six years ago, he had grabbed the magazine after everyone had had a good look and taken it home with him, admiring the beautiful girls with his flashlight under the covers that night, masturbating for the very first time.

But seeing Ellie as a sexual active – in a way – teenager was just not right. She was just a little girl, or at least up until now, he had never really thought about seeing her in a different light.

Before starting to graphically imagine Ellie looking at Bill's magazine while touching herself, he decided to get ready and head off to work. 'Better be gone by the time she awakes', he reckoned. He just didn't feel like looking her in the eye and pretend everything was normal just yet. For a second he remembered her weirdness at dinner the day before and wondered if it was in any way related to his weirdness right now but decided to put an end to his thinking process for the time being. Keeping busy was the new motto of the day.

Ellie's day had been uneventful so far. She awoke to an empty house well rested and with little recollection of why she had slept in Joel's bed instead of her own. Pushing any thought to the night's disturbance aside, she rose and after having a cup of tea, went into town to find Maria. Somehow, she felt way more relaxed than at any point during the last two days.

'Must've been a hell of a nap', she thought and smiled happily.

Maria wasn't at home and neither was Tommy. She crossed the town center ('Downtown Jackson') and climbed the ladder to the wall surrounding most of the city. It wasn't exactly a wall made of bricks like in the middle ages, but more like adjoining lookouts. She was helping with guard duty regularly, her next shift starting this afternoon. Maria sometimes came here to talk about incoming products, hunting parties leaving or changes in patrol duty.

A man was sitting in an old lawn chair with his rifle on his lap looking into the distance.

"Morning, Wilson."

"Hey, Ellie." Wilson was in his late fifties and far from being in good shape like Joel was. Fine, his bearded companion was ten years younger, but Ellie doubted, that Joel would become as thin (almost frail) and weak as the man sitting in front of her in ten years time. She liked Wilson enough, but felt he may have had as much chance to win in hand-to-hand combat as her. He was a gifted hunter though and could spot and shoot prey (or clickers or bad guys) from a considerable distance. That made him almost invaluable on the wall.

"Have you seen Maria? I wanted to ask if I could start my shift early. I'm kind of bored." Also she wanted to clear her head and staring at the lovely scenery Jackson's outskirts presented was perfect for just that.

"You wanna start early? Here you go." Wilson didn't even ask for a reason, he just stood up and gave her his rifle; seemingly glad to get off early. Then he put one of his hands on her shoulder, gave her a good squeeze and climbed down the ladder.

'Well he certainly didn't need to be asked to leave twice', she thought, wondering slightly why he had been so quick in accepting her – not really an offer even – words. Might as well enjoy it though. And so her watch began.

When Joel got home around six, Ellie was nowhere to be seen. He remembered her telling him about her shift starting at three and he relaxed. He hadn't even realized how tense he had been all day. Somehow, he felt that this tension wasn't only connected to building a house all day.

'It's been a while…', he thought to himself and when he settled into bed a few hours later, he tried remembering the last time he had had 'real' sex. It most definitely had been with Tess. There was a stabbing sensation in his gut. He was sad, that he had lost his partner in such a hurry, without ever really having the opportunity to say goodbye. Things had to change at some point. He couldn't just NOT mourn the loss of her. Since her brutal but inevitable death, he had tried brushing each thought of her aside. That had proven to be more difficult than he expected with Ellie constantly trying to apologize and then Bill getting on and on about how Tess wouldn't approve and so on.

They hadn't exactly been a couple. Their relationship was of a more complex and complicated nature. Tess had never been his friend, much less his girlfriend. She was his partner first and foremost. At first, they had just been a motley crew, working together out of sheer necessity and profiting from each other's contacts. But over time, just like every other male-female-relationship outside the family, their dynamic underwent some changes. Tension built and without any true love involved, they had begun a sexual affair. They didn't exchange affections the way couples did. To them, sex was a possibility to feel some pleasure in these fucked up times and a fun way to blow off some steam. It had always been efficient, just like every one of their jobs. Tess had usually been in charge. He could picture her now, taking off her own clothes and slightly glaring in his direction.

"Get undressed" she would have said casually but with determination in her voice. And Joel would respond 'Yes ma'am…' or 'Sure thing, boss', because that was his thing. She would almost always make the first move, pushing him down on the bed (or couch, or floor… hell one time she had actually pushed him against a table, commanding him to climb atop and lie down there…). Then she would sit next to him, grabbing his member like a beer bottle and beginning to stroke in a quick pace.

Joel's breath caught. He reached down underneath the covers and started freeing his dick while his imagination continued painting pictures of past events.

When he wasn't already hard as a rock, Tess would often be disappointed and only strike him that much faster without mercy. Sometimes she would touch his balls and that would definitely get him going.

She never used her mouth or lips though. There was no kissing involved, ever. That would be too personal and it was not what their relationship was like. When it was his turn to pleasure her (and she would never forget to remind him), he would hold her in one of his arms while finger-fucking her till she came or told him to stop. Albeit her tough and bossy exterior, she mostly wanted him to dominate her when they eventually came around to having real intercourse. She preferred to be fucked from behind, not looking at Joel, while edging him on to thrust as fast and hard as possible. In the beginning, this side of her had really freaked him out, but over time he figured, it was the only way she could let go and enjoy, knowing that someone just kind of 'forced' her to. Or maybe it had something to do with the childhood she never wanted to talk about.

Although sex with Tess had meant a nearly assured orgasm, the thought of their intimacy was not doing the trick tonight. It might have had to do with the fact, that Joel felt conflicted about mourning her while imagining her jerking him off at the same time. Of course, his member had started to grow hard, but it was still pretty flaccid considering the scenes flashing before his inner eye.

He tried remembering the one time their intercourse had slightly resembled that of two lovers. The woman had been showering and when Joel had walked into the bathroom to clean up as well, he saw her touching herself, purring like a kitten. It had been the most fragile he had ever seen her. He continued watching her, starting to pleasure himself leaning against the bathroom sink.

The image of Ellie squeezing her hands in-between her thighs, moving her hips in order to cause friction against her clit, suddenly popped into his head.

"No!" he sighed angrily, stopping his movements. This was so damn inappropriate for him to think about. He shook his head resolutely, trying to remember the shape of Tess's breast, the well-defined muscles on her arms, his fingers stroking along her wet folds.

Ellie's faint moan filled his ears again. Of course she was present only in his memory, but it was distracting nonetheless. It didn't help matters that his dick had decided to twitch euphorically at the memory of the girl lying in his bed, pleasuring herself.

"Damn it…" he grunted. This could not be happening. How could thinking about the woman he had had sex with multiple times not trigger a sufficient reaction in his crotch, yet inappropriately remembering his young companion masturbating in her sleep made him hard in no time at all? He really should stop what he was doing right now. But somehow, his urges overthrew his moral concerns and his hands immediately found the (conveniently) now hard flesh. Every stroke was bliss and brought him nearer to the first orgasm in way too long. He thought about how Ellie's hair had been all messed up this morning, how her eyes had been shut in delight, how her hips had moved against her rigid arms. But it was the memory of her soft moans that pushed him over the edge.

At three in the afternoon she had spotted some runners in the distance. They ran around the edge of the woods but never really came close. Only when Nick - a twenty-something year old from Chicago - came to relief her of the rifle at one in the morning, did her exhaustion fully creep up on her. The day had passed without her even realizing it. Her thoughts had returned to her conversation with Maria again and again. She had asked herself how bad it actually was, that she started to feel the things she had been feeling. Sure she had been surprised – maybe even a little shocked – in the beginning; but that was due to the unfamiliarity. It was an entirely different thing, knowing about sex and suddenly feeling things that could lead to HER having sex.

When she got home, everything was dark and quiet. Joel had certainly gone to bed already. She kind of missed him, she realized. Not seeing him for an entire day was new and strange. She didn't like it. There was a small nod in her stomach and she went to the fridge to retrieve some of yesterday's potatoes, suspecting a mild hunger crisis. But even when she had finished, the small nod in her belly hadn't entirely disappeared.

She prepared for bed and lay down tiredly. Sleep didn't come easily though and she began picturing Joel's day. Normally he would have told her over dinner, what he and the others on the building crew had accomplished that day. She had no idea how far they had gotten with the new house over the last few days. Imagining him sawing wood into smaller pieces and attaching them to the building shell made her remember the incident a week ago, when everyone had been sweating and discarding their shirts.

She thought back to Joel's broad and tan shoulders, small droplets of glistening sweat finding their way down to the small of his back. His muscular arms were using his shirt to dry off his face and neck and his eyes were squeezed shut against the burning sun. Her memory transformed into something she most definitely had never seen: She imagined him getting some water and drinking it thirstily, not being able to avoid spilling some on his nude torso. Before Ellie's inner eye, he saw Joel looking down at his chest in surprise, his strong abdominal muscles flexing.

Without really intending to do it, Ellie's hands found their way to her own chest and belly. She unbuttoned her flannel and sighed a little as she remembered how her heart had skipped a beat when Joel had done the exact same thing with his shirt at the construction site. Her small fingers slid beneath the fabric and to her breasts of their own accord. The soft touch was warm and made her body vibrate a little. Her right hand caressed her abdomen, which was tickling on the inside. Ellie felt wonderful.

In her imagination, Joel was walking towards her and the scene changed. He was holding her with his strong arms like in one of her dreams. But this time she could see his face. He pulled her into a hug like so often before in real life. This time however, her heartbeat accelerated and she leaned against his bare chest smelling his sweat. His scent was salty but nice and she nestled into his side, when his arms began stroking her back.

Her right hand was now gliding down towards her thighs. With minimal contact she more or less hovered over her skin, enjoying the sensation of anticipation. She shivered and then – as if she had done it a hundred times before – brought her hand down on her sex. She could feel her wet panties beneath her fingers and moaned slightly as her fingers pressed down a little harder. Slowly she began stroking her folds through the fabric – up and down, up and down. Her breath grew shallower by the minute and her heart kept pounding forcibly inside her chest. The space between her legs was hot and wet and tingly somehow. There was a tension building in her lower belly. It wasn't painful like during her period, but reminded her of a good massage – only just inside of her.

The Joel in her imagination was moving one hand from her back to her butt and further down between her legs. Just like her real hand it was sliding up and down her sex.

Ellie suddenly buckled upwards on her bed and she opened her eyes in surprise. A moan started to escape her mouth and she was just barely able to stop it from becoming to loud. She felt something inside of her contract again and again, sending a feeling of sweet pleasure through her entire body.

Ellie hadn't exactly been thinking about the possible repercussions resulting of her imagining Joel as more than a friend/ father figure/ travel companion. The next day however, she was confronted with the grown man of her 'dreams' standing half naked in the kitchen preparing breakfast. She stopped in her tracks and looked at his naked torso.

Drops of water fell from his still wet hair onto his back. He had obviously just come out of the shower. She already started feeling the tingly sensation between her legs again.

"Morning, Kiddo."

"Hey…" she didn't quite know what to say. Her face was burning hot and she was certain the moment he turned around, he would know what kind of thinking was going on inside her little head.

"I gotta talk to Maria, see you later." She quickly left the house before he had any chance to interject or possibly interrogate her as to her strange behavior this past week. Ellie almost broke into a run, but had already reached Tommy and Maria's house. As franticly as a few days before, she knocked at the front door. A glance back to her own home revealed a curiously looking Joel, watching her from the kitchen window. She hastily turned around trying to hide her face. After what seemed like ages, she heard footsteps inside the house and Tommy opened the front door a second later.

"Morning, Tommy. Sorry, need to talk to Maria right now!" And she rushed past him inside the house.

"Morning, Ellie, how are you? You wanna come in? Sure…" Tommy mumbled to himself. "Maria!" he called his wife. She emerged from the upstairs hallway instantly.

"Coming, coming." When she saw Ellie, she just waved Tommy out of the house and sat down with the girl on the couch.

"You want some tea, honey? You look a little feverish. Maybe it is the flu after all?" She wasn't serious and Ellie growled a little at her stupid joke.

"Damn you and the hormones, Maria! I was totally fine a few days ago until you suggested I… explore." The last word came out as a whisper more than anything else. Her volume had decreased with every fucking word and now she was even so ashamed of her last night's actions to look the woman sitting next to her into the eyes. For once, she hoped that Maria could read minds and she didn't have to spill her deepest, darkest secret up to this point to the town leader.

"So, I guess that means you went exploring… with somebody?", Maria asked cautiously. She didn't want to freak Ellie out any further.

"What? No! No… I mean… define 'with somebody'…"

"Well has anyone touched you except yourself, is that what happened?"

"No! Most definitely not!" Ellie was flabbergasted. She was so ashamed about having touched herself while thinking about Joel (JOEL, of all people!), she didn't even want to imagine her shame after actually having had someone (Joel maybe? – 'STOP IT!') else touch her.

"But it has to do with someone, right? You wouldn't feel so ashamed about just exploring yourself, would you? I told you, it is only natural. Everybody does it. Sexuality is part of being human, like eating, breathing and sleeping – if you will." Maria felt like a sex ad teacher once again. She wasn't sure in which direction this conversation was going yet.

"I… I… I imagined someone t-t-touching me." Man! What was wrong with her? She normally never stuttered. Fuck fuck fuck!

"Ellie, don't worry. That is totally fine! It's exactly what I meant when you told me 'bout those guys sweating and stripping, you remember? A definite turn-on! Nobody, not even you should censure your imagination. Just – I don't know how to put it – go with the flow. It's FINE." She pulled Ellie into an embrace and stroke her hair.

"I know, it's scary in the beginning, getting to know your body and handling all those different feelings at once. But it is a wonderful thing, being able to enjoy this stuff and you shouldn't give up. It's what everybody goes through…"

"Even guys?" Ellie had a sudden thought. How would a guy (Joel for example) have handled these kinds of thoughts about someone being near and dear to him when he was young?

"Especially boys… believe me, they have it even worse. They sometime feel aroused with no apparent reason. They can't hide it as well as we can and their imagination sometimes sucks, which can be quite frustrating if we were to believe certain sources…" Ellie connected the dots quickly.

"Ugh, Maria, shut up! I don't wanna know this kind of stuff about Tommy!"

The girl got up and turned for the door, slightly calmer than before.

"It's all good Ellie. Do, what feels good and don't stop exploring. Is all I'll say for now."

He couldn't really remember how it had happened, but that night, Ellie was lying next to him again. She had been thoughtful all day, sometimes avoiding him altogether, sometimes asking strange questions about his childhood, which seemed a bit too random. Joel suspected, that she wanted to talk about something particular, but didn't quite know how to phrase her questions or didn't dare to ask them out loud.

He had not forgotten about her self-pleasuring in his bed the other morning, but tried to ignore the definite possibility of it happening again. He felt ashamed of having thought about her while touching himself – although he attempted to calm himself by repeating over and over that she hadn't been his first choice.

The thing leading up to her presence next to him now, was his feeling that something was definitely wrong. The bad dreams, the avoiding, her being quiet and then jumpy all of a sudden. He had to admit that he worried for her. Maybe she hadn't digested their journey as well as he had hoped. Maybe never really talking about David or Riley and the other people she had clearly lost before they met, wasn't working out as well as he had hoped. It was also very possible that she didn't like living in Jackson. He would have to talk to her for real tomorrow. No escaping, no evading, no avoiding anymore.

He closed his eyes. The day had been long and exhausting. After nearly two months non-stop labor, they had finally finished the rough version of the new house. Sure, there were still some minor reparations and decorating and stuff to do, but that was not his thing anyways. He was looking forward to joining the hunting party again next week. Longing thoughts about green woods and fresh creeks filled his mind and he soon drifted off to sleep.

Ellie was still wide-awake when Joel began snoring mildly. She exhaled audibly. Joel had more or less insisted on her sleeping in his bed again. He was starting to worry about her, she could tell. Only thing was, with his hot body lying this close to her – after what had happened in her mind the night before – was not the best way to send a girl off to sleep.

Just thinking about her shameful thoughts brought back a familiar tension in her lower abdomen and a hot and moist feeling between her legs. 'Damn it, not now!' she thought, but couldn't stop her fingers from sliding down between her legs like the day before and rubbing against the fabric of her panties.

It was so fucking wrong and frustrating – all at the same time. She couldn't possibly be touching herself with Joel lying only a few inches left of her! And yet, the prickling sensation in her lower body commanded the rest of it to work on a release without her rational mind having any say in it.

Ellie closed her eyes and sighed. Already she felt some calm coming over her by just accepting her need to touch herself. Joel was fast asleep, as long as she kept her voice down, she would be okay. This time, unbuttoning her shirt just wasn't enough. She opened it wide, so she could really see her breasts. They had definitely grown and were now able to fill her palms easily, which made the girl really proud. Her right hand grabbed her left nipple and tucked lightly. She moaned as silently as she could and repeated the movement.

Her left hand in the meantime had found its way under the waistband of her underwear and was now gliding through the scarce pubic hair down towards her wet folds. She let her middle finger slide in between her labia and down her hot slit. When she slightly flexed her finger, it came up again and pushed lightly against a little nod, which at this sent a jolt through her like an electrical charge.

'Wow' was all she could think before bringing her middle finger down on her clit once more. She began a sing song of sliding her finger down in between her folds and up again, circling her special nub before sliding her finger down again.

Soon she was panting and having difficulty suppressing a moan. It felt wonderful, touching herself like this and she wondered why in hell she had ever felt ashamed.

In this particular moment, Joel decided to grunt in his sleep, jerking her from the trance she was in. She stopped her actions in shock. Joel stirred slightly and Ellie didn't dare move. Of course, if he awoke now, he would find her with one hand on her cunt and another on her breast, which would not be ideal at all. Luckily, he just turned to his side, now facing her. She could feel his hot breath on her left cheek. The snoring was gone, but it still seemed like Joel was fast asleep.

No sane thought would have ever justified the actions her left hand took then and there: While rolling onto his side, Joel's left hand had slipped in front of him and close enough for his fingertips to connect with the skin of Ellie's ribcage. Her left hand had suddenly a very important mission – getting his hand off of her ribcage and onto her sex. Just like in her imagination. Ellie couldn't even keep up with the movement but could only close her eyes in pleasure when Joel's hand weighed heavily onto her crotch.

The excitement and anticipation was now unbearable and all she could think about was getting rid of that annoying fabric separating her wet skin from his rough touch. She slid her panties down hastily and opened her bent legs. Then, taking Joel's hand into hers, she slid one finger down her sex like she had done before with her own.

The sensation was overwhelming and she actually had to stop a second to catch her breath and accommodate to this new feeling. His finger was rougher than she had thought, but coupled with her wetness and soft skin it gave her just the right amount of friction to make everything inside her tickle and contract at the same time. She slid his finger up and down again. When his finger touched her clit, she arched her back.

'Oh, yes…'

She soon laid his hand down onto her sex, his palm pressing against her nub, while just trying to move his huge finger between her lower lips. On one downward stroke, she halted. There was a new feeling. She – or better Joel – had touched her entrance. Before, she hadn't dared go there. It was where she was bleeding from once a month, and that made it a weird spot. But now the accidental touch had made her curious. She tentatively pressed his fingertip against her entrance and felt her hips move against the hands on their own accord. She tried to relax as she tried to push one of Joel's fingers inside her. It was weird, not knowing, what was going on inside her so she settled on using her on finger for now.

She slid one finger inside her and felt warm and hot walls embracing it, clenching a little, vibrating even. She tried reaching further, to see what else was there, but had to give up soon. Her fingers just weren't long enough. So she took Joel's hand into hers again and began pressing his fingertip into her wet center once again. This time, she led it slide in in one smooth movement, feeling her walls clasping onto his finger as though trying to suck it in further. She retrieved it a little just to push it back in. Again and again she slid Joel's finger inside of her, enjoying the warm feeling of having something fill her insides.

The tension in her lower body started rising rapidly now. Her right hand went back to her nipple as her left tried to keep up a steady rhythm pushing Joel's finger in and out. Her hips moved against his hand, causing his finger to dive into her further while rubbing her pelvis against his palm. She sighed and bit back a moan. This was killing her, but it was the sweetest of all possible deaths.

It felt like she was on a run and could see the finish line up ahead. Her right hand joined her left in-between her thighs, sliding beneath Joel's palm and started rubbing rapidly against her clit. Electric currents ran up and down her spine, making her arch her back und buckle her hips. Her head lifted from the bed only to slam back into the cushions a second later.

And then she came. It was like fireworks and a jump in a glistening creek and sunshine on her skin when everything in her convulsed and all her muscles flexed.

Exhausted, she put Joel's hand back to his body and stood up, taking her clothes with her. She couldn't possibly sleep next to him now. So she went back to her bed and soon fell into a dreamless sleep.

Ellie wasn't entirely sure, if she felt more sad or relieved about Joel leaving with the hunting party a few days later. Things had pretty much gone from awkward to goddamn-fucking-super-duper-awkward after the stunt she had pulled the 'night I got possessed by the devil' as she liked to call it. Truth was, as wonderful as she had felt during her little 'experiment' as guilty she felt now. Reconsidering what had happened, she decided that she had practically molested Joel's sleeping body, or forced his hand to molest her. She was just plain confused, angry with herself and couldn't look the man in the eye at the moment. 'So, I guess relief wins…'

But she also really hated being alone. She always feared the loneliness wouldn't be temporary, but permanent and she dreaded ending up on her own – immune, fighting as the last survivor against a world full of infected that once had been her friends. Ellie had only ever told Sam about her anxieties and wondered, why she hadn't trusted Joel with this information. The man would have most certainly done anything to diminish her fears and not add to them by going on a three-day-long trip, leaving her behind.

Maria however refused to let her go with them, because the leader deemed her too young to go hunting. Ellie had tried arguing, she even offered to show how good a shot she was – although her satisfying performances on wall patrol should be indicator enough of her abilities. There was no persuading the woman however and so, she had no real choice than to stay behind, watching Joel mount a dark horse and ride off through the gates. At least he had turned around to send her a slight nod and intense look. That was their secret code meaning 'I'll come back safe and sound'. He knew, she would kill him if that would turn out to not be the case.

The warm air graced his cheeks while he was riding Rosie, the maroon mare. He felt light, free even and it seemed like the first time in too long that he could actually _breathe_. The other three guys of the hunting party were a little ahead and he was deliberately hanging back in order to avoid any kind of conversation.

He generally liked these hunting expeditions: the prospect of nature, vast fields and green forests surrounding him. The only problem was, Joel found, that some of the guys preferred seeing these outing as some kind of 'bonding among men' experience and would start to "share" their problems as soon as they had left Jackson. Nick, the handsome twenty-something, who was omnipresent in Jackson since his arrival a few months back, was loudly complaining about the impossible prospect of finding "the right girl" in these godforsaken times. Joel had seen Nick helping at the different construction sites, taking watch on one of the lookouts (sometimes alongside Ellie) and even participating in the organization of town events. It seemed, as if the young man was already trying to meet everyone (or every woman as it now seemed) in Jackson within as short a time as possible.

"It really sucks, Mate, you know?", Nick said to Gibbs, a man who, similar to Joel, was one of the older men in the town. He just grunted.

"I mean, come on, I had a girl back in Oklahoma who was _fine_ , and I mean _really fine_. And then she got bitten and over night had turned into an ugly monster. I mean, what is life worth without a little company, he?", Nick continued his monologue. Gibbs was kind enough not to look away. The man had had his fair share of misery, Joel new. Wife lost, sister lost, nieces lost. It seemed that Gibbs, who had been surrounded by women his entire life had, much like Joel, lost everything after the breakout 20 years ago and had never really recovered. This certainly was not the easiest topic to talk to him about. Joel felt uncomfortable listening from a distance. Nick didn't really know yet, what everyone had been going through and how well (or unwell) they had digested it so far.

"Give us a break from your gibber gabber, Nick, and keep a lookout! We don't want to scare away any prey." Tommy said loud enough for the young man ahead to hear. He frowned a little but kept silent.

In truth, Joel didn't want to think about girls/women/female humans too much at the moment, because every time these kinds of topics came up, he would end up thinking about Ellie.

The last week had been awkward as shit with all the weird vibes going around in their home. He hated thinking about the morning, Ellie had moaned, and the time he had jerked off thinking about it. He tried brushing off those thoughts. Right now, it was more important to find their way to a nice clearing to make camp later and then go around building snares for smaller animals. Then he would try to find some deer, he decided.

In the next few hours, they progressed (silently) deeper into the thick woods until they had found a nice clearing. Tommy suggested to make camp as it was already growing darker. While Nick and Gibbs mounted the tents, Tommy and Joel set off to install the traps.

"Is everything alright, brother?" Tommy asked, when they were out of earshot from the other two.

"Yeah… fine." Joel grunted. Tommy wasn't convinced and shook his head.

"Something is going on. I mean there is Ellie, storming in and out of our house nearly every day at really inconvenient times" – he paused – "and then there is you, freakishly enough even more distant and brooding than normally."

Joel looked up slightly confused. He had seen Ellie go over once, he hadn't been aware of her having gone over more often than that. As she was normally such an independent girl, that seemed an odd behavior for the teen.

"What did she want?" he asked, trying to sound only mildly interested while mulling over different scenarios in his head, where Ellie would surprise Maria and his brother at 'inconvenient times'.

Tommy looked away briefly. It had been weird to eavesdrop on Ellie and his wife, while they had had an intimate conversation, but he didn't really mean to either. He had just been not nearly far away some of the times to NOT hear, what they were discussing.

"It seems, Ellie is starting to get interested in guys." He decided to not repeat the sexually charged fragments of conversation that his wife and the girl had shared.

Joel looked up. His jaw muscles tensed a little and he felt like Tommy could tell this information was bothering him.

"What guys?" Joel asked and hated himself for it.

"Not sure, someone 'sweating on the construction site', I think she said." Tommy turned away and started to dig a hole in the ground. Joel turned away silently and did the same. After a while, Tommy stopped to look at his brother quizzically.

"I mean, it's clear why she is acting all weird, but why are you?"

"Not sure." Joel simply said, using Tommy's words. Then he got up and went further into the woods, ending the conversation.

Later that night, Joel was lying awake, desperately trying to go to sleep. Instead a spiral of Ellie-related thoughts kept creeping up on him. Ellie thinking about sweaty guys; Ellie sleeping next to him, Ellie touching herself; Ellie moaning; Ellie smelling good; Ellie becoming a woman; Ellie being a girl; Ellie not being Sarah; Ellie being young; Ellie getting older; Ellie clutching to him in her sleep, shivering and silently crying; Ellie screaming angrily at him; Ellie looking at him embarrassed and turning red; Ellie touching herself…

His hands moved to his face to cover it. He wanted to hide, hit himself and hide again. Why was he thinking about Ellie touching herself again and again? Shouldn't he feel like a father to her after all they had been through? But yet and again, he had stopped himself going down this line of thought because of Sarah. No one could replace her. His sweet baby girl.

It had felt right, calling Ellie that when she was unconscious, not hearing him use these two loving words that had before belonged only to Sarah. And they still should, he silently decided.

Ellie was becoming a woman; he had to accept that. If she had started thinking about guys, it wouldn't be long before she would want to experience intimacy with one of them, Joel was sure. Guys from the construction site… he tried to imagine the men working at the different sites. One by one, their faced flashed across his inner eye. A lot of them were in their thirties and not particularly good looking. Many had scars consistent with fighting clickers and runners for years and years. A few had really bad teeth due to vitamin deficiency and a lack of oral hygiene. Tommy was obviously decent looking, but his brother and married. The only young guy that would come to mind, was Nick. Handsome, young Nick. Joel grunted. He didn't like the idea of Ellie thinking about the young man; maybe even fantasizing about him. It bothered him – and the fact that it bothered him, bothered him even more.

Ellie was a free person and also free to think about whom ever she wanted; was she not? Who was Joel to feel anything regarding Ellie's preference in men, anyway?

Angrily shaking his head, he tried, yet again, to go to sleep. Tomorrow, he would stop this nonsense and concentrate on more important things.

At the very same time, Ellie lay awake as well. She had chosen to sleep in Joel's bed until his return. The sheets still smelled a little like him, and she snuggled up into his blanket. Flashbacks of the night she had 'molested' him rose inside her mind. She still felt ashamed for having used his hand in such a way, yet couldn't help a hopeful sigh leaving her lips. How she would like to feel his rough hand on her body again. It seemed that the last week had really awakened something inside her. Sexual related thoughts were now seemingly constantly on her mind. She had tried to talk to Maria about it more. It seemed to her, that the woman knew so much and was willing to share her knowledge. The only problem was, that Ellie felt embarrassed to really dig into detail about what she had experienced and wanted so desperately to experience.

She pictured Joel, lying next to her again, sleeping while she took his hand again to place it on her sex. Ellie imagined him waking up this time and after an initial shock, he would continue pleasuring her, maybe even kissing her passionately as she had seen Maria and Tommy doing it.

Ellie sighed and touched her labia through her underwear. It angered her a little, that it was herself touching her sex and not Joel and she tried to let herself get lost in her imagination once more. When she started sliding her index finger inside herself, she disappointedly opened her eyes. It just didn't feel the same. Joel's finger had been warm and rough and thick and her own was so thin and slick, it didn't cause nearly enough friction. She tried inserting a second finger, and felt a little pinch at her entrance. After a while the slight pain left, but the couldn't reach far enough inside of her. Her lower abdomen clenched on the inside and she desperately wanted to reach the point were she thought, a little nod lay so she could massage the tension away.

Exasperated, she gave up and lay on her back, all limbs spread out.

"This is so fucking frustrating", she yelled out, glad that no one but her was home. She felt a definite yearning for Joel, his body, his hands and his touch and wondered, when this complete change in her feelings towards her companion had taken place and if it was okay for her to feel that way.

Joel got home three days later as planned. Ellie had started to worry, when the hunting party hadn't come back in the morning, but by midday, they had arrived. The prey they had hunted would last them at least two weeks and everyone was happy and relieved they had returned in one piece.

Joel took Rosie and the other horses back to the stables while everyone else helped distribute the meat between the town folk and the butcher crew. The man patted his mare on the neck and continued stroking it absentmindedly. He had decided to resolutely keep out of Ellie's business and let her go make 'experiences'. After all, he had done so when he was a teenager and would have hated his parents being too nosy about it. He wondered if he should talk to her anyway in order to clear the air and make the awkwardness of the past weeks disappear.

When he turned, she was standing ten feet behind him, watching him curiously.

"Hey" she said. It seemed like such a simple word, such a simple greeting and still it felt like there was a weight to it Joel could sense without entirely understanding it. He nodded and looked back to Rosie, continuing to strike her neck. He knew, he should say something, but didn't feel like starting a bullshit small talk right then and there. He was yearning to speak his mind, let all these thoughts just roll out of him and be done with it, but that just wasn't right.

Ellie approached and lightly touched his shoulder, which made him jump. She withdrew her fingers and scratched her left eyebrow instead, looking down at the ground, a sad smile on her face. Was that how it was going to be from now on? Did he know, what she had done and decided that once and for all she had crossed a line? Was that to be fate's punishment for taking what she had wanted without asking for permission first?

"Did you have a nice outing?" she tried to change the subject, turning away from him to look at the other horses.

Joel could see that his surprised jump had hurt her in some way and wanted to rectify his mistake so now he touched her shoulder and turned her back around. He didn't want this distance between them! They had survived and suffered - together. They could get through this weird rough patch that they hadn't even officially acknowledged, too.

"Ellie, sorry, I was just lost in thought… Hey." A faint smile crossed his face and then he pulled her into a warm and strong hug. "It's real good to be back."

Ellie exhaled. She hadn't even realized that she had been holding her breath. She felt some of the tension leaving her and closed her eyes enjoying Joel's arms enveloping her fully.

"Glad to have you back, too."

They marched back to their home in silence, both lost in their individual train of thoughts, wanting to get some privacy from the excited town folk. They heard distant yelling and an announcement of a feast for this evening, but didn't bother commenting on it.

When the front door shut behind them, Ellie fell onto the couch. She briefly looked at Joel and then up at the ceiling in silence. The man scratched his beard, contemplating how to proceed. For a while, he just watched Ellie watching the wooden ceiling. Then his gaze wandered up and down her body. She had definite female features now. Her breasts were showing underneath her shirt and her hips were a little rounder than when he had met her almost one and a half years ago.

He sighed and stared at the floor. Tommy was right. He just had to accept that Ellie was becoming a woman. And if that meant that she was going to be falling for Nick, than he would just have to live with it. The girl had gone through enough and deserved a little fun, luck and joy.

"Tommy told me about your conversations with Maria", Joel broke the silence. Suddenly, Ellie was sitting upright on the sofa, looking at him almost terrified.

"Wh-wh-wh-what?" Argh! Not this fucking stuttering again, she moaned inside her head.

"Yeah, he said that you were all worked up about something and went to talk to Maria about it. He was worried about us." Joel had this intense stare that Ellie found almost unbearable.

"A-about us?" Oh my god! Had Maria guessed whom Ellie was crushing on? She had been so careful not to mention his name. Damn Maria! And then she had broken her confidence and plainly told Tommy? What a bitch!

Ellie shook his head. It wasn't like her to think that way about the woman. She generally liked her. But that was just embarrassing! Fuck, fuck, FUCK!

"It seems, you weren't the only one acting all weird." She looked up at him. Did he mean what she thought he meant?

"I mean, it is difficult for me to let go, I guess. But you are getting older, you are… developing and of course, Nick is a handsome fellow" – now Joel was just rambling while mumbling which made it very difficult for Ellie to follow – "and he IS looking for a girl, and, I guess, why not? Who am I to stand in your way, right?" He had turned away, seemingly speaking to himself now.

What the hell was he saying? Nick? Letting go of her? For Nick? What the fuck?

He continued mumbling into his beard, but she couldn't – wouldn't – hear any more of his nonsense.

"I am not interested in Nick", she almost yelled, blushing. Now could be the moment to reveal the feelings she had for him, _Joel_ , but he was turned away and that was not at all how she had imagined this to happen. It was all just too much! "I don't even know what you are talking about!" She desperately wanted to flee so she turned on the spot and climbed the stairs to barricade herself in her room.

Joel just stood there, not really sure what had happened, what he had just thought and what he had actually said out loud. That had definitely not gone as planned.

He followed her, not wanting to leave the situation unresolved. A slight knock on her bedroom door didn't get any response. Even the second and third knock weren't graced with Ellie's attention. Joel leaned on the wall next to her door and just started talking, hoping that she was listening anyway.

"I…" he struggled for the right words "I just want to tell you, it's okay what you are experiencing. You _should_ enjoy youth and what it has to offer." He felt drained. That was all he managed to say in a composed fashion for now, so he left, going into his own room, falling onto the bed.

He had said it himself. She _should_ enjoy herself! His enunciation of the word rang in her ears. She was just following his advice, wasn't she? That was practically giving her permission for what she was about to do, she decided. After all: actions spoke louder than words, wasn't that the famous saying?

Silently, Ellie entered his room. The man was lying on his bed, fully dressed but sleeping soundly. She approached the bed, looking down at him, taking in his long, strong legs, wide torso and brown-greyish beard over his peaceful face. As silently as possible, she took off her pants and shirt so she was just dressed in her underwear, and then lay down next to him. He shifted slightly in response.

Her right hand moved to touch his cheek and she bent closer. Hesitantly, she brought her mouth down to his, gently moving her lips against his in a way she had seen Maria and Tommy do it. She was surprised, when his lips mimicked hers of their own accord, while the man still seemed asleep. Closing her eyes, she felt a weird, albeit warm feeling stir inside her tummy. His beard tickled her chin. After a while she moved, so her torso was hovering over his. That was much better. She felt, she could apply a bit more pressure than had been possible in the awkward side-by-side kissing position before.

Her right hand left his face to support herself on the mattress while her left index gently traced his jawline under his beard. Joel stirred and a slight gasp left his lips when Ellie ended their kissing to catch her breath.

"I love you" she whispered in his left ear.

And suddenly, there were his strong arms grabbing her shoulders, moving her away from him.

"Ellie, what are you doing?" Joel asked, confused, alerted even.

"Enjoying youth" she stated and leaned back in. He turned his head just in time to avoid another kiss. This made her reach up with both hands to grab his head, which made him take hold of her wrists. They struggled for a few seconds before she gave up and sat silently opposite him, hugging her knees.

"That – that was not what I meant", he said. How could she have mistaken his words? Obviously, he was enjoying her attention – the tightness in his pants was as clear an indicator as any – but that hardly seemed right. He had been over this again and again, arguing in an inner dialog with his desire and reason.

"I am not interested in Nick or anyone else. I like _you._ " She tried to hold eye contact to convey some of the wanting that she felt, maybe even transfer it onto her beloved companion. He looked back with an astonished expression on his face.

Could that be? The young girl, falling for the older guy who had been more than reluctant to take her on in the first place? It seemed unreal. But only part of Joel was following this 'rational' line of thought. His insides – his groin mainly – had triggered another idea: could Ellie really like him like that? And wouldn't that make it right for him to fantasize about her slight moaning, her touching herself, him touching her…? The thing he had hated himself for thinking about these past days? But it was so wrong. He was thrice as old as her...

"It's just not right" he whispered almost inaudibly. Ellie saw his eyes rest on the covers, avoiding her gaze. He suddenly seemed so small, so vulnerable. Nothing the girl had witnessed before had ever been like that. She thought for a moment he might break.

Her hands slowly, carefully reached for his face again and he let it happen. She tried to tilt his head back up to make him look at her. When his eyes met hers, they were dark and sad.

"I don't care" she whispered back and kissed him softly for the third time.

Amazed at her, Joel let it happen. It felt weird, but he had to admit that Ellie was the strong one of the both of them. She had decided she wanted him and taken him for herself. It was so much more than Joel could ever say about himself. He was so weak in comparison.

Their kissing turned more passionate and he felt Ellie's small hands pushing him back onto the mattress. Tentatively, he brought his arms around her small frame, enveloping her into an intimate embrace. She sighed happily in between kisses and a shiver traveled down his spine in response. When she moved one leg between his, he drew a quick breath, facing away from her. That was way too intense, way too fast! He wasn't sure, the girl even knew, what she was doing to him, but her leg in-between his was definitely a little too much to handle for him.

"Uh… Ellie…" he tried to squeeze between kisses. She seemed famished in a way, as if kissing was a necessary meal and wouldn't let his mouth go. The pressure in his pants began to hurt and he shoved her off of him as gently as possible.

"What?" she asked exasperated, trying to at least hold on to his face.

"Er… you were… your legs were…" How could he put it without sounding like an old pervert? But he didn't need to specify. Ellie's eyes had already flown to his crotch and a blush on her cheeks made him guess, she had understood.

What happened next, was even more difficult for him to digest. Her little fingers went to his belt and started unbuckling it, moving fast before he could even truly register, that she was about to take his pants off.

"Stop, Ellie, no!" he almost pleaded.

"I just want you to be more comfortable… like me!" It was only then, that he realized that Ellie was naked except for her underwear. He looked away. It seemed so wrong to see her like that with a definite hard-on in his pants. Ellie didn't leave him any time to think about how indecent the situation might seem and was already continuing to unzip his jeans.

"Come on! Get 'em off!" she said light-heartedly, encouraging him to proceed without her help.

"Ellie, this is really going too far now, we should stop" he tried one last time, to reason with a part of her that didn't exist. Ellie wanted to experiment – with him and he would not get her to stop without force.


	2. Chapter 2

Warning: graphic sex ahead, again...

"Stop, Ellie, no!" he almost pleaded.

"I just want you to be more comfortable… like me!" It was only then, that he realized that Ellie was naked except for her underwear. He looked away. It seemed so wrong to see her like that with a definite hard-on in his pants. Ellie didn't leave him any time to think about how indecent the situation might seem and was already continuing to unzip his jeans.

"Come on! Get 'em off!" she said light-heartedly, encouraging him to proceed without her help.

"Ellie, this is really going too far now, we should stop" he tried one last time, to reason with a part of her that didn't exist. Ellie wanted to experiment – with him and he would not get her to stop without force.

He grabbed her wrists and pulled them away from his pants.

"Let's just… calm down for a second. Okay?" He wasn't really asking. Closing his eyes, he tried to calm his breath. When he opened them again, Ellie was looking expectantly at him.

"This is a little much to digest right now, Ellie" The absurdity of the situation hit him hard. Him half sitting, half lying in his bed, the zipper of his pants down revealing a definite bulge in his briefs – and half on top of him, half beside him the young Ellie with her pale and smooth skin (except for a few scars and the cordycep's mark on her lower arm). She was studying his face now, licking her lips absentmindedly.

He looked away and gulped. Damn! Why did she have to do that? Joel closed his eyes again, shaking his head as if this would make the indecent thoughts circling his brain go away. Fuck Fuck Fuck!

Somehow, Ellie didn't really mind her wrists being enclosed in his hands. She shifted slightly, moving one leg from in between his legs to the side and was suddenly sitting down on top of his crotch.

"ELLIE!" Joel exclaimed in shock, letting go of her hands to grab her hips, trying to move the girl off of him. However, she just encircled his hips with her legs when he moved, so he fell down on top of her.

"Ellie, stop this, now!" he growled, but she had already used the newfound freedom of her hands to grab his head and pull it down towards hers. They kissed for the fourth time. Joel tried to fight it – fighting the girl alone would have probably been doable, but fighting his urges, the welcoming warmth of her inner thighs around his hips and the fluttering sensation that was spreading from his stomach like little electric charges to the tips of his toes was something else entirely. And way too hard. So he gave in. There really was no other choice, here.

Ellie tried to do her best to not let him get away. It felt so good to kiss him, to have his weight on her, the hot and hard bulge pressing onto her sex. She felt so whole. Her inexperienced mouth tried to press against his lips, trying to mimic their movements. She felt his tongue flick against her lower lip and opened her mouth to lick his lip in return. His beard was tickling and scratching her lower face, but she decided she liked the mixed sensation.

Joel's hands had started to move, leaving her hips. His right hand went to her neck, caressing her skin and tugging softly at her hair. The other hand was moving in the opposite direction to her thigh, slowing striking up and down.

When they broke free for air, she put her right index quickly over his lips in order to stop him from saying anything.

"I want this, Joel." She sounded so determined, so strong. Joel kissed her finger and closed his eyes, while her other hand touched his face so very gently. How long had it been, since he had felt this kind of a human connection, this kind of intimacy. His felt his heart was about to break.

"Okay", he heard himself saying without knowing what had made him do that.

Ellie exhaled audibly, relieved, excited and maybe just a little bit anxious. She quickly kissed him again. Her hands moved to his shirt and she started to unbutton it slowly. He was now using his arms to hold his weight and allow her access instead of caressing her, which made Ellie a little angry. She hurried up and when he sat up to pull off his shirt completely, she sat up too and started touching his bare chest. It was glorious, she thought. Short black hair sprang from the middle of his pecs, other than that, his chest was mostly smooth and tan. She remembered the image of the hot summer's day with pearls of sweat slowly painting wet trails on his skin. She leaned forward and kissed him just below his right clavicle. Joel inhaled sharply. Taking this as encouragement, she kissed her way down to the right nipple and tentatively flicked her tongue across it. Another sharp inhale.

'Fascinating', she thought. Her right hand came up to touch the left nipple and Joel couldn't stop himself from sighing audibly. His hands found their way to her head and back. His rough fingers were drawing circles on her shoulders while the other hand was now entangled in her hair. When she paused a second to look up, Joel had his eyes tightly shut and was biting his lower lip. Ellie smiled and went back to work.

Her mouth moved from one side to the other, all the while continuing a mix of kisses and licks across his torso. His nipples seemed extremely sensitive and were hard like fresh flower buds. She tentatively bit down on his left nipple and he gripped her shoulders _hard_ while a deep groan escaped his mouth. She quickly flicked her wet tongue across it as compensation. It was fun to discover his body like this. She pushed against his chest, implying he should lie down and he complied swiftly. This new position allowed her better access to his abdomen and her mouth quickly continued its journey to lower levels. His body was covered in little scars he had acquired while trying to survive these past 21 years. She planted a soft kiss on the oval shaped scar on his left abdomen that had almost cost him his life.

Joel's hands left her body and he was now pressing both his palms into the sockets of his eyes. What in god's name was he doing? How could he be allowing Ellie to touch, _kiss_ him like that? He was such a fucking pervert! He shouldn't be enjoying this! But it felt so damn _good_. And the girl had said, that this was something she wanted to do. Who was he to deny her this chance to experiment? But this was Ellie! Sweet, foul-mouthed, innocent Ellie.

Ellie, sensing his inner battle firing up again, stopped. Her hands found his, pulling them away from his eyes. Planting a soft kiss on his lips she locked eyes with him and smiled softly.

"It's okay, Joel." She whispered and kissed him again. "Relax, please." Pleading voice. Another kiss. "I want this." Another kiss. "Really." Her earnest voice and soft kisses helped him relax a little. He couldn't say a word. He knew if he opened his mouth, he would try to stop her again. And the girl seemed determined to not let that happen. Her green eyes were fixed upon his brown ones. It seemed to Joel as if she could see right into his soul. Her right hand cupped his face and he relaxed a little more into her soft touch. Ellie's left hand trailed slowly across his chest, drawing little patterns, crossing his nipples and his navel and then it travelled further down.

When her fingers found their destination, he couldn't help but close his eyes and moan. Her small hand was cupping his bulge and squeezing slightly. Damn it! Joel suddenly pulled the girl down and kissed her feverishly. He had waited on the edge of reason and was now falling down the rabbit hole. There was no going back.

His hands started to roam her small frame wildly. They found their way to her breasts and squeezed them through the fabric of her bra. Now she had to moan a little. As if suddenly possessed, he took control. Rolling them over, so Ellie was once again lying on her back. His lips crashed against her neck, while his hands were trying to loosen the annoying bit of underwear concealing her small breasts. Ellie didn't even feel the bra coming off when Joel's mouth enclosed around one of her nipples.

"Oh my god!" she exclaimed loudly. Her hands found their way to his hair and she loved the feeling of combing it roughly with her small fingers. Joel's right hand found her left nipple and he pinched it slightly, which made every coherent thought in Ellie's head evaporate.

His hands moved quickly over her tummy, back to her breasts, to her neck, then to her legs. She couldn't even follow their motion; it simply felt as if the man possessed not two but ten or more hands. And every contact between his rough and her soft skin sent little jolts of happiness through her entire body. His tongue was circling her nipple, then her navel and her other nipple and she felt a shiver running down her spine.

She pulled him up to meet her lips once more. "I want you", she had hardly finished whispering when Joel's hands found her slip and pulled it down, finally freeing her. Although it wasn't exactly cold, the collision of fresh air with her wet and hot folds made her gasp.

Joel looked down Ellie's body. Her skin was now freckled with little spots of red, her torso was heaving in tune with her heavy breaths; and her legs were parted welcomingly. He could see the glittering folds, the swollen mound of her sex. He hesitated.

"Please", she pleaded. He leaned down and kissed her softly and his right hand connected with her labia. She moaned loudly into the kiss. His middle finger slowly touched her vulva and stroke softly upward to find the little nob that made her tremble from head to toe. Joel circled her clitoris and slid down once more to find her wet opening. He tentatively slid his finger into her warm, soft entrance. Ellie moaned even louder. His thumb started circling her nob while his finger tried pushing a little further. A brief, sharp pain ran through Ellie and she gasped, tensing visibly. Joel stopped.

Joel cupped her face and kissed her. "Sh… it's okay" he tried to soothe her. "Try to relax, it's only gonna hurt for a little while." She looked at him and nodded. His finger pushed forward again, breaking the little barrier, moving even further. Her breathing deepened. Joel reactivated his thumb, circling her clit to distract her. His mouth found her nipple and he sucked hard. Ellie gasped again – this time in definite pleasure. He quickly added a second finger to enter her. Her walls were so warm, so soft and slippery and her enchanting smell started to fill his nose. He wanted to taste her.

He moved upwards to kiss her again, then whispered softly in her ear "don't freak out". She was left bewildered and watched while he slid down the bed and settled his head between her thighs. If her cheeks were a little pink before, they were approaching tomato red in seconds now. But she had no time to feel embarrassed and forgot everything around her, when his tongue found her nob and her hips suddenly jerked upwards.

"Oh… FUCK!" she nearly screamed and quickly clasped her hands over her mouth. She desperately groaned into her palms, her eyes now shut tightly while she was trying to make sense of this new and overwhelming sensation.

Joel had missed this. Tasting a women's sex, licking the wet folds, drawing little patterns across the clit. Tess had rarely ever wanted him to go down on her, since she would never give him head either. But the few times, that he had convinced her, he wanted to do it, had been quite special.

His nose nuzzled through the small patch of pubic hair on Ellie's mound. God, she smelled so good. And her taste… he couldn't even describe it. His tongue flicked through her labia and found her entrance. A slight coppery taste told him, he had indeed ripped her hymen. He pushed his tongue slightly inside and Ellie moaned softly. Joel couldn't help but smile. This time it was he who was making these sweet noises leave the girl's mouth.

Ellie felt so confused. On the one hand, his tongue was really soft and wet, brushing against her sex, pushing inside her. And on the other Joel's beard was tickling her, even slightly uncomfortably scratching her folds and her inner thighs. It was just too much. Her lower abdomen was spasming. A part of her wanted to squeeze her legs together so Joel could not continue, and another part of her made her hips rock towards his mouth quite involuntarily. Her hands grabbed his hair and she tried pulling him away from her sex weakly.

"S… stop… stop, Joel" she managed to stammer.

Concerned, he halted and looked up. Had he gone too far?

"What is it?" he whispered, not moving.

"Dunno… It feels good, and weird and… like I am about to burst!" she didn't dare look him in the eye.

"That's part of it… just… _let go_ " and without awaiting her response he continued licking her clit and inserted to fingers in her wet hole. He started moving them in and out in a steady rhythm. He could feel her cervix and pushed against it slightly. Ellie gasped again. Then he pressed against the front walls of her vagina and slowly pulled out. When he reached a particular point, Ellie couldn't help it and cried out. Her walls started contracting against his fingers and her entire body shuttered with her orgasmic waves. Joel planted a last wet kiss onto her sex and pulled his fingers out completely.

He slid up, lying next to her and pulled her into a firm hug. Shuttering still, Ellie grabbed his shoulders and nestled into his neck, breathing quickly and deeply.

"Wow…" was all she was able to say.


End file.
